1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a shelf stable, high moisture, meat-containing food product. The food product has a moisture content greater than about 50 percent by weight and is stable against mold and bacterial growth. It is highly desirable both as a human food and as a pet food.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
With the exception of mince meat-like products and "jerky" type products, shelf stable meat-containing or meat-like foods have been unavailable. These products, however, have utilized either a high sugar content or a low moisture content to preserve the meat. A high moisture content meaty human food with shelf stability has been heretofore unknown.
Pet foods generally fall into three classes. The low moisture containing animal foods, that is, animal foods containing less than about 15 percent by weight moisture are known as the dry pet foods and are stable because the water activity therein does not lend itself to mold and bacterial growth. These products need not be aseptically canned or preserved since they are stable by their chemical characteristics.
The high moisture containing pet foods, namely those in the order of about 85 percent by weight moisture, require aseptic canning for preservation. These are the well known canned pet foods.
In recent years the pet food industry has moved toward the very popular semi-moist or intermediate moisture pet foods. These pet foods are intermediate in moisture having a moisture content of from about 20 to about 40 percent by weight. While this moisture content would normally render the product susceptable to mold and bacterial growth, these products have been rendered stable by inclusion of various acids and solutes thereby altering the pH and also decreasing the water activity, A.sub.w, to a level which makes mold and bacterial growth virtually impossible. Beginning with the Burgess patent, U.S. Pat. No. 3,202,514, the pet food industry has developed a multitude of methods for making semi-moist food products and rendering them stable against mold and bacterial growth. Generally, however, these products have always utilized a pH control and solute content in order to provide a critical acidity and water activity and thereby discourage mold and bacterial growth. To this date, however, no one has successfully developed a high moisture containing animal food, that is, an animal food with a moisture content above about 50 percent by weight, which is also stable against mold and bacterial growth. Also, no one has, prior to this invention, developed an animal food product which has a water activity in the order of above about 0.90 but which is still stable against mold and bacterial growth. This invention accomplishes this result and provides the long felt need for a high moisture, meat-containing, shelf stable, animal food product.